Читать «Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина» онлайн - страница 527

I

   Chased by the vernal beams,    down the surrounding hills the snows already    have run in turbid streams   onto the inundated fields.    With a serene smile, nature    greets through her sleep the morning of the year.    Bluing, the heavens shine.   The yet transparent woods    as if with down are greening.    The bee flies from her waxen cell    after the tribute of the field.  The dales grow dry and varicolored.    The herds are noisy, and the nightingale    has sung already in the hush of nights.

II

   How sad your apparition is to me,    spring, spring, season of love!    What a dark stir there is   in my soul, in my blood!    With what oppressive tenderness    I revel in the whiff    of spring fanning my face   in the lap of the rural stillness!    Or is enjoyment strange to me,    and all that gladdens, animates,    all that exults and gleams,  casts spleen and languishment    upon a soul long dead    and all looks dark to it?

III

   Or gladdened not by the return    of leaves that perished in the autumn,    a bitter loss we recollect,   harking to the new murmur of the woods;    or with reanimated nature we    compare in troubled thought    the withering of our years,   for which there is no renovation?    Perhaps there comes into our thoughts,    midst a poetical reverie,    some other ancient spring,  which sets our heart aquiver    with the dream of a distant clime,    a marvelous night, a moon....

IV

   Now is the time: good lazybones,    epicurean sages; you,    equanimous fortunates;   you, fledglings of the Lyóvshin school;    you, country Priams;    and sentimental ladies, you;    spring calls you to the country,   season of warmth, of flowers, of labors,    of inspired rambles,    and of seductive nights.    Friends! to the fields, quick, quick;  in heavy loaden chariots;    with your own horses or with posters;    out of the towngates start to trek!

V

   And you, indulgent reader,    in your imported calash, leave    the indefatigable city   where in the winter you caroused;    let's go with my capricious Muse    to hear the murmur of a park    above a nameless river, in the country place,   where my Eugene, an idle and despondent    recluse, but recently    dwelt in the winter, in the neighborhood    of youthful Tanya,  of my dear dreamer;    but where he is no longer now...    where a sad trace he left.

VI

   'Mid hills disposed in a half circle,    let us go thither where a rill,    winding, by way of a green meadow,   runs to the river through a linden bosquet.    The nightingale, spring's lover,    sings there all night; the cinnamon rose    blooms, and the babble of the fount is heard.   There a tombstone is seen    in the shade of two ancient pines.    The scripture to the stranger says:    “Here lies Vladimir Lenski,  who early died the death of the courageous,    in such a year, at such an age.    Repose, boy poet!”

VII

   On the inclined bough of a pine,    time was, the early breeze    above that humble urn   swayed a mysterious wreath;    time was, during late leisures,    two girl companions hither used to come;    and, by the moon, upon the grave,   embraced, they wept;    but now... the drear memorial is    forgot. The wonted trail to it,    weed-choked. No wreath is on the bough.  Alone, beneath it, gray and feeble,    the herdsman as before keeps singing    and plaiting his poor footgear.

X

   My poor Lenski! Pining away,    she did not weep for long.    Alas! The young fiancée   is to her woe untrue.    Another ravished her attention,    another managed with love's flattery    to lull to sleep her suffering:   an uhlan knew how to enthrall her,    an uhlan by her soul is loved;    and lo! with him already at the altar    she modestly beneath the bridal crown  stands with bent head,    fire in her lowered eyes,    a light smile on her lips.

XI

   My poor Lenski! Beyond the grave,    in the confines of deaf eternity,    was the despondent bard perturbed   by the fell news of the betrayal?    Or on the Lethe lulled to sleep,    blest with insensibility, the poet    no longer is perturbed by anything,   and closed and mute is earth to him?...    'Tis so! Indifferent oblivion    beyond the sepulcher awaits us.    The voice of foes, of friends, of loves abruptly  falls silent. Only over the estate    the angry chorus of the heirs    starts an indecent squabble.

XII

   And soon the ringing voice of Olya    was in the Larin family stilled.    A captive of his lot, the uhlan   had to rejoin his regiment with her.    Bitterly shedding floods of tears,    the old dame, as she took leave of her daughter,    seemed scarce alive,   but Tanya could not cry;    only a deadly pallor covered    her melancholy face.    When everybody came out on the porch,  and one and all, taking leave, bustled    around the chariot of the newly wed,    Tatiana saw them off.

XIII

   And long did she, as through a mist,    gaze after them...    And now Tatiana is alone, alone!   Alas! Companion of so many years,    her youthful doveling,    her own dear bosom friend,    has been by fate borne far away,   has been from her forever separated.    She, like a shade, roams aimlessly;    now into the deserted garden looks.    Nowhere, in nothing, are there joys for her,  and she finds no relief    for tears suppressed,    and torn asunder is her heart.

XIV

   And in the cruel solitude    stronger her passion burns,    and louder does her heart of distant   Onegin speak to her.    She will not see him;    she must abhor in him    the slayer of her brother;   the poet perished... but already none    remembers him, already to another    his promised bride has given herself.    The poet's memory has sped by  as smoke across an azure sky;    perhaps there are two hearts that yet    grieve for him.... Wherefore grieve?

XV

   'Twas evening. The sky darkened. Waters    streamed quietly. The beetle churred.    The choral throngs already were dispersing.   Across the river, smoking, glowed already    the fire of fishermen. In open country    by the moon's silvery light,    sunk in her dreams,   long did Tatiana walk alone. She walked,    she walked. And suddenly before her from a hill    she sees a manor house, a village,    a grove below hill, and a garden  above a luminous river.    She gazes, and the heart in her    faster and harder has begun to beat.

XVI

   Doubts trouble her:    “Shall I go on? Shall I go back?... He is not here.    They do not know me.... I shall glance   at the house, at that garden.”    And so downhill Tatiana walks,    scarce breathing; casts around    a gaze full of perplexity...   and enters a deserted courtyard.    Dogs toward her    dash, barking… At her frightened cry    a household brood of serf boys  has noisily converged. Not without fighting    the boys dispersed the hounds,    taking the lady under their protection.

XVII

   “I wonder, can one see the master house?”    asked Tanya. Speedily    the children to Anisia ran   to get the hallway keys from her.    Anisia came forth to her promptly, and the door    before them opened,    and Tanya stepped into the empty house,   where recently our hero had been living.    She looked: in the reception room forgotten,    a cue reposed upon the billiard table;    upon a rumpled sofa lay  a riding crop. Tanya went on.    The old crone said to her: “And here's the fireplace;    here master used to sit alone.

XVIII

   “Here in the winter the late Lenski,    our neighbor, used to dine with him.    This way, please, follow me.   This was the master's study;    he used to sleep here, take his coffee, listen    to the steward's reports,    and in the morning read a book....   And the old master lived here too;    on Sundays, at this window here,    time was, donning his spectacles,    he'd deign to play ‘tomfools’ with me.  God grant salvation to his soul    and peace to his dear bones    in the grave, in damp mother earth!”

XIX

   Tatiana looks with melting gaze    at everything around her,    and all to her seems priceless,   all quickens her languorous soul    with a half-painful joyance:    the desk with its extinguished lamp,    a pile of books, and at the window   a carpet-covered bed, and from the window    the prospect through the lunar gloom,    and this pale half-light, and Lord Byron's portrait,    and a small column  with a cast-iron statuette    with clouded brow under a hat,    with arms crosswise compressed.

XX

   Tatiana in the modish cell    stands long as one bewitched.    But it is late. A cold wind has arisen.   It's dark in the dale. The grove sleeps    above the misted river;    the moon has hid behind the hill,    and it is time, high time,   that the young pilgrimess went home;    and Tanya, hiding her excitement,    and not without a sigh,    starts out on her way back;  but first she asks permission    to visit the deserted castle    so as to read books there alone.

XXI

   Beyond the gate Tatiana parted    with the housekeeper. A day later,    early at morn this time, again she came   to the abandoned shelter,    and in the silent study, for a while    to all on earth oblivious, she    remained at last alone,   and long she wept.    Then to the books she turned.    At first she was not in a mood for them,    but their choice seemed to her  bizarre. Tatiana fell to reading    with avid soul; and there revealed itself    a different world to her.

XXII

   Although we know that Eugene    had long ceased to like reading,    still, several works   he had exempted from disgrace:    the singer of the Giaour and Juan    and, with him, also two or three    novels in which the epoch is reflected   and modern man    rather correctly represented    with his immoral soul,    selfish and dry,  to dreaming measurelessly given,    with his embittered mind    boiling in empty action.

XXIII

   Many pages preserved    the trenchant mark of fingernails;    the eyes of the attentive maiden   are fixed on them more eagerly.    Tatiana sees with trepidation    by what thought, observation    Onegin would be struck,   what he agreed with tacitly.    The dashes of his pencil she    encounters in their margins.    Unconsciously Onegin's soul  has everywhere expressed itself —    now by a succinct word, now by a cross,    now by an interrogatory crotchet.

XXIV

   And my Tatiana by degrees    begins to understand    more clearly now — thank God —   him for whom by imperious fate    she is sentenced to sigh.    A sad and dangerous eccentric,    creature of hell or heaven,   this angel, this proud fiend, what, then, is he?    Can it be, he's an imitation,    an insignificant phantasm, or else    a Muscovite in Harold's mantle,  a glossary of alien vagaries,    a complete lexicon of words in vogue?...    Might he not be, in fact, a parody?

XXV

   Can she have solved the riddle?    Can “the word” have been found?    The hours run; she has forgotten   that she is long due home —    where two neighbors have got together,    and where the talk is about her.    “What should one do? Tatiana is no infant,”   quoth the old lady with a groan.    “Why, Olinka is younger.... It is time,    yea, yea, the maiden were established;    but then — what can I do with her?  She turns down everybody with the same    curt ‘I'll not marry,’ and keeps brooding,    and wanders in the woods alone.”

XXVI

   “Might she not be in love?” “With whom, then?    Buyánov offered: was rejected.    Same thing with Ivan Petushkóv.   There guested with us a hussar, Pïhtín;    oh my, how sweet he was on Tanya,    how he bestirred himself, the coax!    Thought I: perchance, she will accept;   far from it! And again the deal was off.”    “Why, my dear lady, what's the hindrance?    To Moscow, to the mart of brides!    One hears, the vacant places there are many.”  “Och, my good sir! My income's scanty.”    “Sufficient for a single winter;    if not, just borrow — say, from me.”

XXVII

   Much did the old dame like    the sensible and sound advice;    she checked accounts — and there and then decided   in winter to set out for Moscow;    and Tanya hears this news....    Unto the judgment    of the exacting beau monde to present   the clear traits of provincial    simplicity, and antiquated finery,    and antiquated turns of speech;    the mocking glances  of Moscow fops and Circes to attract....    O terror! No, better and safer,    back in the woods for her to stay.

XXVIII

   With the first rays arising    she hastens now into the fields    and, with soft-melting eyes   surveying them, she says:    “Farewell, pacific dales,    and you, familiar hilltops,    and you, familiar woods!   Farewell, celestial beauty,    farewell, glad nature!    I am exchanging a dear quiet world    for the hum of resplendent vanities!...  And you, my freedom, farewell, too!    Whither, wherefore, do I bear onward?    What does my fate hold out for me?”

XXIX

   Her walks last longer.    At present, here a hillock, there a brook,    cannot help stopping   Tatiana with their charm.    She, as with ancient friends,    with her groves, meadows,    still hastens to converse.   But the fleet summer flies.    The golden autumn has arrived.    Nature, tremulous, pale,    is like a victim richly decked....  Now, driving clouds along, the North    has blown, has howled, and now herself    Winter the sorceress comes.

XXX

   She came, scattered herself; in flocks    hung on the limbs of oaks;    in wavy carpets lay   amid the fields, about the hills;    the banks with the immobile river    made level with a puffy pall.    Frost gleamed. And we are gladdened   by Mother Winter's pranks.    By them not gladdened is but Tanya's heart:    she does not go to meet the winter,    inhale the frostdust,  and with the first snow from the bathhouse roof    wash face, shoulders, and breast.    Tatiana dreads the winter way.

XXXI

   The day of leaving is long overdue;    the last term now goes by. Inspected,    relined, made solid is the sledded coach   that to oblivion had been cast.    The usual train of three kibitkas    carries the household chattels:    pans, chairs, trunks, jams in jars,   mattresses, feather beds,    cages with roosters, pots,    basins, et cetera —    well, plenty of all kinds of goods.  And now, among the servants in the log hut,    a hubbub rises, farewell weeping:    into the courtyard eighteen nags are led.

XXXII

   They to the master coach are harnessed;    men cooks prepare lunch; the kibitkas    are loaded mountain-high;   serf women, coachmen brawl.    Upon a lean and shaggy jade a bearded    postilion sits. Retainers at the gate    have gathered, running,   to bid their mistresses farewell. And now    they've settled, and the venerable sleigh-coach    beyond the gate creeps, gliding.    “Farewell, pacific sites!  Farewell, secluded refuge!    Shall I see you?” And from the eyes    of Tanya flows a stream of tears.

XXXIII

   When we the boundaries of beneficial    enlightenment move farther out,    in due time (by the computation   of philosophic tabulae,    in some five hundred years) roads, surely,    at home will change immeasurably.    Paved highways at this point and that   uniting Russia will traverse her;    cast-iron bridges o'er the waters    in ample arcs will stride;    we shall part mountains; under water  dig daring tunnels;    and Christendom will institute    at every stage a tavern.

XXXIV

   The roads at home are bad at present;    forgotten bridges rot;    at stages the bedbugs and fleas   do not give one a minute's sleep.    No taverns. In a cold log hut    there hangs for show a highfalutin    but meager bill of fare, and teases   one's futile appetite,    while the rural Cyclopes    in front of a slow fire    treat with a Russian hammer  Europe's light article,    blessing the ruts    and ditches of the fatherland.

XXXV

   Now, on the other hand, driving in winter's    cold season is agreeable and easy.    As in a modish song a verse devoid of thought,   smooth is the winter track.    Alert are our Automedons,    our troikas never tire,    and mileposts, humoring the idle gaze,   before one's eyes flick like a fence.    Unluckily, Dame Larin dragged along,    fearing expensive stages,    with her own horses, not with posters,  and our maid tasted    viatic tedium in full:    they traveled seven days and nights.

XXXVI

   But now 'tis near. Before them    the ancient tops of white-stone Moscow    already glow   with golden crosses, ember-bright.    Ah, chums, how pleased I was    when, all at once, the hemicircle    of churches and of belfries,   of gardens, domes, opened before me!    How often during woeful separation,    in my wandering fate,    Moscow, I thought of you!  Moscow!... How much within that sound    is blended for a Russian heart!    How much is echoed there!

XXXVII

   Here is, surrounded by its park,    Petrovskiy Castle. Somberly    it prides itself on recent glory.   In vain Napoleon, intoxicated    with his last fortune, waited    for kneeling Moscow with the keys    of the old Kremlin: no,   to him my Moscow did not go    with craven brow;    not revelry, not gifts of bienvenue —    a conflagration she prepared  for the impatient hero.    From here, in meditation sunk,    he watched the formidable flame.

XXXVIII

   Good-by, witness of fallen glory,    Petrovskiy Castle. Hup! Don't stop,    get on! The turnpike posts already   show white. Along Tverskaya Street    the coach now hies across the dips.    There flicker by: watch boxes, peasant women,    urchins, shops, street lamps,   palaces, gardens, monasteries,    Bokharans, sledges, kitchen gardens,    merchants, small shacks, muzhiks,    boulevards, towers, Cossacks,  pharmacies, fashion shops,    balconies, lions on the gates,    and flocks of jackdaws on the crosses.

XL

   In this exhausting promenade    an hour elapses, then another,    and in a lane hard by St. Chariton's   the sleigh-coach at a gate before a house    now stops. To an old aunt,    for the fourth year ill with consumption,    at present they have come.   The door is opened wide for them    by a bespectacled gray Kalmuk,    in torn caftan, a stocking in his hand.    There meets them in the drawing room  the cry of the princess    on a divan prostrated. The old ladies,    weeping, embrace, and exclamations pour:

XLI

   “Princess, mon ange!” “Pachette!” “Aline!”    “Who would have thought?” “How long it's been!”    “For how much time?” “Dear! Cousin!”   “Sit down — how queer it is!    I'd swear the scene is from a novel!”    “And this is my daughter Tatiana.”    “Ah, Tanya! Come up here to me —   I seem to be delirious in my sleep.    Coz, you remember Grandison?”    “What, Grandison? Oh, Grandison!    Why, yes, I do, I do. Well, where is he?”  “In Moscow — dwelling by St. Simeon's;    on Christmas Eve he called on me:    got a son married recently.

XLII

   “As to the other... But we'll tell it all    later, won't we? To all her kin    straightway tomorrow we'll show Tanya.   Pity that paying visits is for me    too much — can hardly drag my feet.    But you are worn out from the journey;    let's go and have a rest together...   Oh, I've no strength... my chest is tired...    now even joy, not only woe,    oppressive is to me. My dear,    I am already good for nothing...  When one starts getting old, life is so horrid.”    And here, exhausted utterly,    in tears, she broke into a coughing fit.

XLIII

   The invalid's kindness and gladness touch    Tatiana; but in her    new domicile she's ill at ease,   used as she is to her own chamber.    Beneath a silken curtain,    in a new bed sleep does not come to her,    and the early peal of church bells,   forerunner of the morning tasks,    arouses her from bed.    Tanya sits down beside the window.    The darkness thins; but she  does not discern her fields:    there is before her a strange yard,    a stable, kitchen house, and fence.

XLIV

   And now, on rounds of family dinners    Tanya they trundle daily to present    to grandsires and to grandams   her abstract indolence.    For kin come from afar    there's everywhere a kind reception,    and exclamations, and good cheer.   “How Tanya's grown! Such a short while    it seems since I godmothered you!”    “And since I bore you in my arms!”    “And since I pulled you by the ears!”  “And since I fed you gingerbread!”    And the grandmothers keep repeating    in chorus: “How our years do fly!”

XLV

   But one can see no change in them;    in them all follows the old pattern:    the spinster princess, Aunt Eléna,   has got the very same tulle mob;    still cerused is Lukéria Lvóvna;    the same lies tells Lyubóv Petróvna;    Iván Petróvich is as stupid;   Semyón Petróvich as tightfisted;    and Palagéya Nikolávna    has the same friend, Monsieur Finemouche,    and the same spitz, and the same husband —  while he is still the sedulous clubman,    is just as meek, is just as deaf,    still eats and drinks enough for two.

XLVI

   Their daughters embrace Tanya.    Moscow's young graces    at first in silence   from head to foot survey Tatiana;    find her somewhat bizarre,    provincial, and affected,    and somewhat pale and thin,   but on the whole not bad at all;    then, to nature submitting, they    befriend her, lead her to their rooms,    kiss her, squeeze tenderly her hands,  fluff up her curls after the fashion,    and in their singsong tones impart    the secrets of the heart, secrets of maidens,

XLVII

   conquests of others and their own,    hopes, pranks, daydreams.    The innocent talks flow,   embellished with slight calumny.    Then, in requital for their patter,    her heart's confession they    sweetly request.   But Tanya in a kind of daze    their speeches hears without response,    understands nothing,    and her heart's secret,  fond treasure of both tears and bliss,    she mutely guards meantime    and shares with none.

XLVIII

   Tatiana wishes to make out    the talks, the general conversation;    but there engages everybody in the drawing room   such incoherent, common rot;    all about them is so pale, neutral;    they even slander dully.    In this sterile aridity of speeches,   interrogations, talebearing, and news,    not once in four-and-twenty hours does thought    flash forth, even by chance, even at random;    the languid mind won't smile,  the heart even in jest won't quiver;    and even some droll foolishness in you    one will not meet with, hollow monde!

XLIX

   The “archival youths” in a crowd    look priggishly at Tanya    and about her among themselves   unfavorably speak.    One melancholy coxcomb finds    she is “ideal”    and, leaning 'gainst a doorpost,   prepares an elegy for her.    At a dull aunt's having met Tanya,    once V[yazemski] sat down beside her    and managed to engage her soul;  and, near him having noticed her,    an old man, straightening his wig,    inquires about her.

L

   But where stormy Melpomene's    protracted wail resounds,    where she her spangled mantle waves   before the frigid crowd;    where dozes quietly Thalia    and hearkens not to friendly plaudits;    where at Terpsichore alone   the young spectator marvels    (as it was, too, in former years,    in your time and in mine),    toward her did not turn  either jealous lorgnettes of ladies    or spyglasses of modish connoisseurs    from boxes or the rows of stalls.

LI

   To the Sobránie, too, they bring her:    the crush there, the excitement, heat,    the music's crash, the tapers' glare,   the flicker, whirl of rapid pairs,    the light attires of belles,    the galleries freaked with people,    of marriageable girls the ample hemicycle,   at once strike all the senses.    Here finished fops display    their impudence, their waistcoats,    and negligent lorgnettes.  Hither hussars on leave    haste to arrive, to thunder by,    flash, captivate, and wing away.

LII

   The night has many charming stars,    in Moscow there are many belles;    but brighter in the airy blue   than all her skymates is the moon;    but she, whom with my lyre    disturb I dare not,    like the majestic moon,   'mid dames and maidens shines alone.    With what celestial pride    the earth she touches!    With what voluptuousness her breast is filled!  How languorous her wondrous gaze!...    But 'tis enough, enough; do cease:    to folly you have paid your due.

LIII

   Noise, laughter, scampering, bows,    galope, mazurka, waltz... Meantime,    between two aunts, beside a column,   noted by none,    Tatiana looks and does not see,    detests the agitation of the monde;    she stifles here... she strains in fancy   toward campestral life,    the country, the poor villagers,    to that secluded nook    where flows a limpid brooklet,  toward her flowers, toward her novels,    and to the gloom of linden avenues,    thither where he used to appear to her

LIV

   Thus does her thought roam far away:    high life and noisy ball are both forgotten,    but meantime does not take his eyes off her   a certain imposing general.    The aunts exchanged a wink and both    as one nudged Tanya with their elbows,    and each whispered to her:   “Look quickly to your left.”    “My left? Where? What is there?”    “Well, whatsoever there be, look....    In that group, see? In front....  There where you see those two in uniform....    Now he has moved off... now he stands in profile.”    “Who? That fat general?”

LV

   But here we shall congratulate    my dear Tatiana on a conquest    and turn our course aside,   lest I forget of whom I sing....    And by the way, here are two words about it:    “I sing a youthful pal    and many eccentricities of his.   Bless my long labor,    O you, Muse of the Epic!    And having handed me a trusty staff,    let me not wander aslant and askew.”  Enough! The load come off my shoulders!    To classicism I have paid my respects:    though late, but there's an introduction.